gold of
love-happiness, you must not fade away yet for a long
time."

No. 553: "Aunt, why don't you remove the parrot from
this bed-chamber? He betrays all the caressing words to
others."

Hindoo poets have the faculty, which they share with the Japanese, of
bringing a whole scene or episode vividly before the eyes with a
sentence or two, as all the foregoing selections show. Sometimes a
whole story is thus condensed, as in the following:

"'Master! He came to implore our protection. Save him!'
thus speaking, she very slyly hastened to turn over her
paramour to her suddenly entering husband." (See also
No. 305 and _Hitopadesa_, p. 88.)

SYMPTOMS OF MASCULINE LOVE

Since Hindoo women, in spite of their altruistic training, are
prevented by their lack of culture or virtue (the domestic virtuous
women have no culture and the cultured bayaderes have no virtue) from
rising to the heights of sentimental love, it would be hopeless to
expect the amazingly selfish, unsympathetic and cruel men to do so,
despite their intellectual culture. Among all the seven hundred poems
culled by Hala there are only two or three which even hint at the
higher phases of love in masculine bosoms. Inasmuch as No. 383 tells
us that even "the male elephant, though tormented by great hunger,
thinking of his beloved wife, allows the juicy lotos-stalk to wither
in his trunk," one could hardly expect of man less than the sentiment
expressed in No. 576: "He who has a faithful love considers himself
contented even in misfortune, whereas without his love he is unhappy
though he possess the earth." Another poem indicating that Hindoo men
may share with women a strong feeling of amorous monopolism is No.
498:

"He regards only her countenance, and she, too, is
quite intoxicated at sight of him. Both of them,
satisfied with one another, act as if in the whole
world there were no other women or men."

But as a rule the men are depicted as being fickle, even more so than
the women. A frequent complaint of the girls is that the men forget
whom they happen to be caressing and call them by another girl's name.
More frequent still are the complaints of neglect or desertion. One of
these, No. 46, suggests the praises of night sung in the mediaeval
legend of Tristan and Isolde:

"To-morrow morning, my beloved, the hard-hearted goes
away--so people say. O sacred night! do lengthe